


The Soul’s Superior Instants

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Aunt-Niece Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pet Names, Post-Canon, Romance, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She'd nursed May the best she could.





	The Soul’s Superior Instants

She was old, but she was never a fool, Agatha Phinney Penniston, and though she’d let the man in and closed the door, that wasn’t to be to the end of it. He’d been brusque but it hadn’t disguised the manners of a gentleman born, nor the urgency of a lover and if no one else remembered that Agatha was familiar with both, that didn’t mean she’d forgot herself. She’d ushered him up the stairs, thinking his name was the one May had written with the greatest care on the letter she’d forbidden to be sent. And how May’s pale face had been somehow transfigured by the writing, the shadows beneath her eyes darker, the shadow of Death clinging closer when she’d laid down the pen. She’d let the man, Dr. Foster, into May’s room and watched to see her niece’s face, so much like her own mother’s; it was the first medicine that had seemed to make any difference and she’d shut the door gently, though neither of them had noticed.

They did not notice when she returned, opening the door carefully to prevent its crotchety creak; May was sleeping but there was color in her cheeks, the faintest rose of a blush noisette, and her Dr. Foster was watching her with the fierceness of a general, the gentleness of her dearest love. Agatha thought Mary’s dead Baron, the kindest man she’d ever met, could hardly find fault and neither could she. When she came near midnight, her dressing gown rustling on the floorboards, the candle was guttering and Jedediah Foster slept with one of May’s hands held in both of his, his whole form canted towards her as if he would have laid his head beneath her hand or fallen asleep on his knees, praying. She thought he was too old, that he’d suffer for it in the morning, but she knew it was nothing to what it would cost him if she woke him now and sent him to the aired guest room. She would remember them both in her own prayers and the morning would tell her if she was right, if Foster was the cure May needed, her dark eyes opening to find him still beside her stronger than any tonic.

In that same morning, Jed Foster begged her pardon and May smiled. Smiled and took the whole cup of broth without dissent, and Agatha saw she might live. Meant to and gladly. She’d not been such a fool and she needn’t remind them of it. May knew and would thank her and Foster brought her a bunch of violets, wet and tied with a bit of ribbon, the whole time distracted by his urgent wish to return to her niece. Agatha closed the door behind her and rested, unworried, much and justifiably blessed.

**Author's Note:**

> A little musing on how to account for what seems to be some relatively period inappropriate behavior in Mercy Street as well as giving a minor character a chance to be heard. Title from Emily Dickinson, don't you know.


End file.
